"TAGGART" - читать интересную книгу автора (L'Amour Louis)

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Adam was not sure why Miriam had joined them, but no doubt she had her reasons. During
the years since their childhood he had come to possess a considerable respect for
the quality of her judgment ... yet she often startled him with her sudden decisions.
There was between them more than the
6
2 Louis L'AMOUR
natural affection resulting from relationship. They were good friends also, each
appreciating the qualities of the other.
The gold he panned had been taken from a spot on that alluvial fan which left small
doubt that the source lay higher up the mountain, for there was no other way the
gold could have reached the place where he had discovered it.
Two further pans taken from higher up the fan confirmed his belief, convincing him
that if he could not find the lode from which this gold had flaked off, he could
make a stake placering the debris from the fan itself.
Yet every moment they were in danger, and if discovered by Apaches they would surely
be killed. Nonetheless, the quest for gold had brought him here, and he meant to
have what he had found. The women were in even worse danger than he, but they had
elected to come along ... Moreover, Adam Stark was a man who knew his own strength,
his own capabilities, and he felt that with reasonable care he could keep his presence
here unknown.
His reasons for wanting the gold were two. He wanted the gold to buy and stock a
ranch for himself and his wife, and he wanted the gold so that he might take Consuelo
to San Francisco and give her the taste of luxury and easy living she seemed so much
to want.
For himself the desert was enough, the desert and that ranch and the freedon it offered.
But he enjoyed the giving of pleasure to others, and to Consuelo whom he loved, he
could not give too much. Adam Stark knew himself thoroughly, and he knew that his
wife did not know him. Despite the fact that she now insisted she no longer loved
him, he was sure she was mistaken, and he did love her. She had wanted a more obviously
strong man, one with flash and demonstration. He suspected that Consuelo accepted
the appearance of strength for its reality ... and there was considerable difference.
Adam had been in love with her from their first meeting, but he had been amazed when
she accepted him.
Miriam ... he was never sure what it was Miriam wanted of life, but he was sure Miriam